1. Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to data security, and more specifically, the invention relates to methods and systems for encrypting data.
2. Background Art
Many different types of data security measures are known. Presently, most widespread data security measures are based on public-key encryption, in which a first, publicly available key is used to encrypt data, and a second, secret or private key is used to decrypt the data.
Public key cryptography suffers from various disadvantages. For example, administration is typically required to ensure that public keys are assigned to each user. A person's public key must be listed in a directory and must be found in the directory prior to encrypting a message. The computational burden of public-key cryptography is significant both in generating random prime numbers for use as keys and in the encryption and decryption processing itself. Furthermore, despite the computational complexity, public key encryption using medium size keys has been shown to be insecure given the tremendous network computing resources that may be brought to bear on breaking the encryption.
Another cryptography approach that can be used is symmetric-key cryptography, which requires the use of the identical key to decrypt a data file as was used to encrypt the file. The key, thus, needs to be communicated in secret between users. The necessary. secret communication can be cumbersome and difficult. Moreover, the required secrecy is not always maintained.